5 Responses to “Lathe Tool!”

1. Jim Dunmyer Says:
   June 3rd, 2009 at 8:03 PM

   Looks good from Northern MN, home of Al Franken!

2. Steve H. Says:
   June 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 PM

   Thanks for the comforting words, Jim. I used it on some aluminum, and it seems to function.

3. og Says:
   June 3rd, 2009 at 9:59 PM

   Get a belt sander. It would only have taken you forty two minutes, but the angles would be perfect. Otherwise it looks plenty good.

4. thebends Says:
   June 3rd, 2009 at 10:40 PM

   That looks way better than my first stab at grinding my own.

   I bet that leaves a nice finish.

5. Bill Pence Says:
   June 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 PM

   You’re getting there. You probably found that you didn’t get the nicest surface finish, even though you had this big radius. The reason is you are only cutting with a small corner of the bit, depending on your depth of cut. So most of the curvature is wasted. What I think you would like to do is make the left side of the bit flat, not curved. Let it intersect with the relief on the right side of the bit, and then put a small radius on the intersection. Say about .020-.030. That is plenty big enough. You want to make sure that the intersections of the three planes: back, side, and top rake, meet at sharp corners.

   Look at the area which is probably doing the cutting, in the second picture. Note the flattened area, where the edge is not sharp. That will rub a bit, so you want to grind that away until you get a nice sharp, hollow ground edge. Then stone it lightly with a fine stone to smooth it out and sharpen the edge; take care not to round it over (easy to do).

   After you get this sorted out, you will want to learn to put a chip breaker on the cutting edge. Really helps out. Here is a nice article with pictures and diagrams that is pretty good.

   http://tinyurl.com/csuemg

   You’re making good progress. Keep it up. Post more pictures.

   Bill

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